Google Marks Chrome’s 5th Birthday with Packaged App Push

It’s Chrome’s fifth (yes, fifth!) birthday today and to mark the occasion Google has announced something special: ‘a new breed of Chrome App’.

Now, before you get too excited, I should point out this ‘new breed of Chrome App’ isn’t all that new at all – at least, not to any one who’s been following Chrome or this site. ‘Chrome App’ is the user-facing term for ‘Packaged App’.

Packaged Apps are a far cry from the traditional ‘web app’ They’re not stuck in a tab or exist as nothing more than ‘glorified bookmark’ to a website. Packaged Apps work more like ‘native’ desktop apps. They don’t require Chrome to be open to run, work fine offline, and are able to interact and access computer hardware like webcams, USB sticks and more.

Chrome Apps have been available to install from the Chrome Web Store for several months. But, from today, Google are giving them a visible push to more users through a new Web Store initiative called ‘For Your Desktop’.

I agree with you mostly. I beleive web apps could take over the desktop if they continue to grow in functionality the way they are now. But Chrome OS itself is actually a closed source version of Chromium OS.

Mathspy

I know, but after a few more versions I am pretty sure they may make it an opensource and if they didn’t, that’s okay. It will still be free, because with now the Chrome Apps, they can sell apps.
So the more people with Chrome OS the better for them and that’s why they will make it available for installation for free.
Imagine the shock on Microsoft and Apple XD

fahadayaz

Chromium OS is open source. It has been since the beginning.

Chromium OS is to Chrome OS, like Chromium is to Chrome. Everything is done open source in Chromium, then they package it up with the yellow branding and a few proprietary things and call it Chrome.

Jack Deuce

Finally, offline Pocket for PC (with Chrome installed)

Boothy

I love them, been using for a while in dev and then beta.
All Google services, Evernote, and Pixlr Editor as packaged apps and I’ll be an even happier Chrome user than I am now……… :)

This is where Google really pissed me off. All of those packaged apps (excluding Google+ Photos, which refuses to load images and only shows “Upload some photos to get started.” message) work on Linux without problems. So why the hell did Google restrict it only for Chrome OS, Win and OS X dev channels? I really don’t understand it…
And due to a bug I can even see it in Chrome on my Elementary Desktop http://db.tt/eEVgpevg

P.S. but aside of this, packaged apps are awesome things. Chrome OS will be usable for anything really soon.

Kenny Strawn

Since Chrome OS IS Linux and IS99.999999…% open source, I wouldn’t be surprised… Then again, the Windows Canary build (and soon the Linux Dev channel when 32 gets to it, supposedly) will bring the Chrome OS Aura/Ash desktop to other operating systems, so when that happens, it should be ready for prime time anyway…